Common Name: smoothpod hoarypea

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Shrub

General: Small shrub 30-100 cm tall with angled stems, the bark finely strigose-canescent, with stipules 4-12 mm long.

Leaves: Odd-pinnate leaves with elongated-oval to spatulate leaflets, 9-19 leaflets, with a gap between the internodes and a single leaflet at the tip of the leaf, midvein on the back of the leaflets prominent, glabrous above, minutely and sparsely puberulent below, 4-10 mm wide, 1.5-3.5 cm long.

Flowers: Flowers borne on elongate, loosely flowered and short peduncled racemes 10-25 cm long, corollas white to purple with united stamens, the pedicels slender 3-5 mm long, the calyx tube 2-3 mm long, lobes about the same, purplish, corolla 15-18 mm long, pink to deep red, the banner densely strigulose without, the petals short clawed and the keel semicircular.

Fruits: Elongated, glabrous pods, more or less restricted around the seeds, pods with a small curved tip at the end, glabrous, 5-6 mm wide, 2.5-5 cm long.

Ecology: Found on rocky and gravelly slopes, often found among shrubs or under trees from 4,500-5,500 ft (1372-1676 m); flowers August-September.

Distribution: Ranges across southern Arizona, south to Sonora east into Chihuahua and as far south as Jalisco.

Notes: This species is thought to possibly be poisonous.

Ethnobotany: Unknown

Etymology: Tephrosia is derived from the Greek tephra for ash colored, while leiocarpa comes from Greek leios or smooth and karpos fruit.

Synonyms: Tephrosia affinis, T. viridis

Editor: LCrumbacher and Steve Buckley, 2011